Heartfelt Clips and Healthy Tips: Life on the Farm Continues for Jimmy the Pig

For those of you who read my first article on Jimmy the Pig, you are somewhat familiarized with his character. For those of you who didn’t get to read it, you can search through the articles here in Lifestyle to find “This Little Piggy Went to Market” from October of last year to get caught up on Jimmy’s story.

Since last October, Jimmy has made his mark on the family that purchased him. This large male hog has a sweet, loving personality that no one can ignore. Mix this with the humor in his personality, and he could not be denied as an adopted part of the family. Jimmy was initially purchased for the desired task of breeding and then taken to the market; but little did the owners know as told in my first story, he had other plans.

Life on the farm for Jimmy has actually been a bed of roses, or should I say a “puddle of mud.” Since his initial determined stance of staying as far away from the market as he could, he has become a permanent member of the family who actually has his say so in almost everything. Jimmy and his siblings have been so busy populating, that now there was a need to build a new barn for the fast growing number of baby piglets.

Not long ago, the owners were marking the land (or trying to) by putting up stakes to mark the area for the posts so they could begin building a new piggy barn. At one point while they were placing the markers, Jimmy decided he wanted to relocate the new barn. He plopped himself on the ground where there should have been a stake, but instead he had pulled it up and was sitting there with it in this mouth. He did not like their choice spot for the new barn. Jimmy had other ideas of where the new piggy barn should be built. I’m sure the owners had to lure him back into his pen so they could continue the process of building the new piggy barn. Jimmy’s determination didn’t win out on this one, and I guess he wasn’t able to have the last say in this project at this time (but who knows what tomorrow brings).

The adventures of Jimmy the big-hearted pig with a large personality, continues; stay tuned!

Wash Your Hands

It sounds like pure common sense, right? We pick up tens of thousands of germs from everyday activities in which we usually think nothing about. Sometimes we tend to take short cuts when it comes to washing our hands. Take for instance, a cell phone. Most all of us have one and probably don’t clean it regularly, if at all. We also share these phones with others. Bacteria grow in warm places. Between the heat from the phone, the warmth from the hands, and the germs from other people; we are wide open to these bacteria. Cell phones usually carry 10 times more bacteria than a toilet seat, yuk!

Other places to be aware of that harbor bacteria are; remote controls, elevator buttons, door handles, shopping carts, computer keyboards, and likewise. Since these are all items that are not cleaned on a regular basis, bacteria accumulate and grow.

This gives us all more reason to wash our hands more often than we do; not only rub a gel sanitizer, but scrub with good old fashioned soap and water! Wash those germs down the drain where they belong. You would be surprised at the sicknesses you can avoid by simply washing your hands often throughout the day. So what are you waiting for? Go wash those hands.